New & Improved!! Yes, I Am Talking About THIS Blog —Version 2.0

[post 465] 

I started this blog in May, 2009 and nine years and 441 posts later I decided to take a little break. Not out of boredom or any feeling that enough was enough, but simply because I had too many other projects and I seemed incapable of writing quick posts. Every idea, no matter how simple it initially appeared, inevitably took me down some fascinating rabbit hole of research, where other examples and insights kept popping up. Which is great for a blogopedia, except posts that I fantasized would be knocked off in an hour or so ended up taking up the better part of a day or two. So I took a short break —for eight years!

What happened? Well, those other projects took over and multiplied, and then covid hit, and I ended up in Greenwood Lake, NY, building a circus studio with a few clown-carpenter buddies. (But that’s another story.) But my mind and curiosity never shut down. I would constantly jot down ideas for new posts. Finally, almost a year ago (8-29-25) I relaunched the blog, having great fun putting together 22 new posts before going off to Europe this April to teach and to explore, leaving me with little time to actually finish a post. It was a great 6-week trip, during which many new ideas percolated. Unfortunately, toward the end, in a brief moment of inattention, my backpack was stolen at the railroad station in Cherbourg, and not only did I lose my laptop, I lost a lot of writing I had done, including material for future blog posts. I had been on a roll in terms of writing, but because I am, after all is said and done, An Idiot, most of it was not backed up. Lost, lost, lost. Since then I have been rebuilding six months of my digital life.

On a happier note, this spring I also finally moved ahead on a long-time dream of porting the blog from the free but archaic Google Blogger to the more powerful WordPress platform, which is enabling me to seriously upgrade the design. Not just in terms of visual attractiveness, but for ease of use and enhanced interactivity. I have also begun the tedious task of repairing broken links. It should come as no surprise that since the blog began17 years ago, many links have become dead ends. Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, pdfs stored on Scribd —so many of them disappear for one reason or another. Wherever possible, links are being restored, and videos and pdfs will be hosted on my domain, where access and downloading will be easy and free.

I used to be a digital media nerd, teaching Quark, Final Cut, Director and several Adobe apps at the college level. At a certain point, however, I realized I couldn't keep up with all the new technology without sacrificing time for creative work, so I drifted away from all that when I retired from college teaching 15 years ago. Rather than attempt to re-educate myself, I was smart to work on the design and implementation of the new site with a professional: Nora Krstulović. Thank you, Nora!

I certainly hope you enjoy the new site! You can reach it by clicking here. [functioning link coming very shortly]

Some upcoming posts:
• My Europe Trip (spoiler alert: clown & circus are thriving!)
• Austria's amazing Circus & Cheese Farm
• My five visits to the Zagreb Clown Festival
• The wonders of the Vienna Circus & Clownmuseum
• A dialogue with my son Nat Towsen about how the worlds of stand-up comedy and physical comedy differ and how they relate.
• A survey of stand-up comedians using physical comedy
• Numerous other fun clips proving physical comedy is indeed everywhere!
• Politics & Physical comedy: how can we be relevant?
• My new favorite dancers: Nils & Bianca
• Many more guest posts by experts in the field offering their own unique experiences and insights
• A six-part (at least) series on how gag structures work

•Analysis of specific skills and their use, including how-to pointers
• My efforts to finally revise my 1976 book Clowns and make the new version widely available
• And numerous short physical comedy video clips that come my way that you may not have seen yet.

This is how it works
• If you navigate to the old version of this blog on Google's Blogger (physicalcomedy.blogspot.com,) you will soon be redirected to the new blog on Wordpress, but the old blog will continue to be there. However, even if you want to read a very old post, it will be better to read it on the new blog, because I will be doing my blog repair (missing links, etc.) directly there and not back on Blogger.

• All correspondence from me about the blog ,or any promoting of the blog, will from now on refer to the new version.

In other words, much is being gained, nothing lost!

What you can do

This blog has always been free, and always will be. I do not take advertising and I do not earn a cent, despite incurring some expenses along the way. It's a labor of love. But since I started it over 17 years ago, attention spans have shortened, reading in depth has become less common, and history has lost its relevance to many. These are not good things for our world, our culture, or for physical comedy performers. There needs to be a balance between new approaches and a knowledge of what came before and how it functions. I hope to contribute to that, and you can too by joining the discussion and letting your friends know about the blog. Personal recommendations go a long way, and I am asking for yours. Thank you!